Prospectus
Food is essential for humans to lead a rich and healthy life; however, compared to the fields of chemistry or medicine, research related to food industry seems to have been neglected.
Because there are many aspects to food, and the food manufacturing and production process is a complex system interlinking many phenomena, to date, the industry has tended to rely on experience and actual achievements, while research institutions such as universities have tended to handle this area simplistically and far removed from reality.
However, given the future of the food industry and the problems related to food resources, energy, and environment that confront us in the 21st century, it is vital that we plan a reconstruction of various learning areas as a foundation without further delay.
Needless to say, for the development of food industry, a sufficient foundation must be laid in food science; however, it is critical to have a greater understanding of “Food Engineering,” which has not been dealt with sufficiently in the past.
“Technology” and “Engineering” are sometimes confused in Japanese as they are homonyms when written in Japanese, but they are originally two different academic disciplines.
“Technology” deals with discrete techniques; “Engineering” is development of technical disciplines as universal engineering methods to support “Science,” and should be called “Engineering Science.”
In our Society, our aim is not to stop at Technology, but to gather researchers and technicians who strongly wish to transcend the realm of mere Technology into Engineering Science.
From the perspective of problems related to food resources, energy, and environment, it is imperative for researchers and technicians?who aim to construct safe food that excels in taste and texture and helps to control the physical condition of the body, and can be produced efficiently?to engage in research and development on the grounds of engineering in this sense. At the same time, it is also important to have a common recognition of this idea when considering the future of food production.
With the rapid progress of internationalization, the development of this kind of engineering is the best strategy for food production to excel in the international competition. It is hard to break through with methods that only use temporary perfunctory techniques.
However, while the importance of engineering related to food is well recognized, scholarly brilliance in this field is lacking and it is rather regarded as a “backseat player.” Such recognition makes it difficult for ambitious young researchers to take on that field, which is being further enhanced by the company’s trend of taking immediate short-term goals, eventually contributing to the neglect of building up their engineering foundation. All in all, the progress of food engineering lags behind.
Under such circumstances, the Japan Society for Food Engineering was established to mutually cultivate, encourage, and support researchers and technicians, and propel this kind of food-related engineering to the forefront.
In the field of food engineering, as seen in the activities of the International Congress on Engineering and Food (ICEF6 & ICEF7) and the (Special) Food Engineering Research Society, we see not only rapid progress in the various phenomena involved in the course of food processing, but also witness fields entirely different from food engineering enter this area and completely new methodologies being introduced for study.
This kind of seedbed cultivates engineering in all facets of the food industry, and has become a great motivation to create a new academic society gathered by researchers and technicians from a wide range of fields.
